Blog for PowerSellers

10 Tips That Will Help You Become an eCommerce Psychology Master

This just in: Integrating human behavioral psychology into eCommerce sales tactics is not a new ball game.

Successful marketing is psychological persuasion: the art of persuading a customer to purchase a product even when they haven’t been actively considering it.

American psychologist, John B Watson, who was famous (or infamous, depending on who you ask) for his studies on behaviorism, orchestrated a number of successful ad campaigns - notably for Ponds Cold Cream and Maxwell House Coffee - based on his understanding of the buyer’s psyche.

The 3-Item Recipe for “Clicks”

Motivation: The customer needs a reason or validation for their behavior.

- Sensation: The need to feel pleasure or avoid pain

- Anticipation: Expecting good things or fearing bad things to come

- Social cohesion: An innate need to feel socially accepted

Ability: The customer needs to be given the means or ability to perform that action.

Trigger: Factors that induce the customer to actually take the action.

Yes, Human Psychology is Tied to your eCommerce Site

Here’s how customer psychology is tied with website user experience, and its impact on the bottom line:

Visual Experience

According to a survey conducted by Bargain Fox, 93% of their respondents felt that the visual aesthetics and appearance of the site were key factors in their decisions to make a purchase. 52% of them abandoned their shopping experience due to poor visual experience.

Website Usability

Navigation, information flow and ease of use on a website can result in a high ROI - up to 83%.

Website Load Time

65% of customers gave up if website load times took more than 3 seconds.

Customer Trust Signals

Websites that carried customer trust seals, VeriSign and Symantec SSL, and Money Back Guarantees can boost a customer’s perception of their trustworthiness, and boost conversions and sales.

Customer Reviews and Testimonials

77% of customers read customer reviews before making a purchase decision, and 44% of those respondents considered customer reviews made within one month relevant.

The power of reviews is clearly massive. Here is one of my favorites to help Amazon sellers deal with customer reviews: AMZFinder. It will match the customer reviews to the corresponding orders, users can contact customers to resolve the negative reviews. Besides, it also features as an auto email tool to help sellers request positive reviews from customers with different email campaigns, every user can send 500 emails every month free of charge.

Once you’ve implemented your behavioral models, you can begin to delve even further into psychology with these 10 eCommerce selling tips:

1. “You Scratch My Back, I’ll Scratch Yours”

eCommerce success can be achieved using the simplest of principles in human psychology, which comes down to quid pro quo. This means when someone offers something to us or does a favor for us, we feel obligated to return the favor in kind.

So, when customers are offered something as a reward or incentive for making a purchase, they’ll be more inclined to purchase more from you.

2. Capitalize on Positivity

If a person has once done a favor for you, there is an increased likelihood that they’ll be inclined to do more favors for you. This means when a customer has had a positive engagement with your brand, they are more likely to come back to you for more business.

Now, while this seems similar to reciprocity, it isn’t quite the same.

Here there is no “obvious incentive” being offered, but rather there is a sense of brand satisfaction and brand commitment.

By increasing interactions and engagement with a customer before they make a purchase, you can trigger their sense of commitment and inclination to buy from you.

- Highlighted features in product description pages, using eye-catching typography and imagery to make it easier for customers to make quick decisions.

- Intuitive product navigation and filter system that allows customers to find exactly what they are looking for.

7. Use Realistic and Effective Imagery

There was a time when “perfection” was used to lure prospective customers into buying product. However, today it has become more apparent that people respond favorably when they can relate to the product. The trick here is allowing your customers to be able to picture themselves using the product.

Realistic modeling

Show regular people using your product. For example, clothing brands today capitalize on this by using realistic models of all sizes to convey the universal appeal to their customers.

Professional quality product images

Use images that convey the quality of your product - especially for high-end products.

This includes:

- High-resolution photography for all your product images

- Multiple angles and variants of the product, for your customers to get a full picture of what the product looks like

- Zoom feature for customers to get a closer look at the product

Telling a story

Another way to effectively use imagery is in telling your brand story: instead of writing a huge wall of text describing how your brand came into being, use images and photography to do it.

8. Encourage “Liking” and Visual Testimonials

“Liking” refers to the tendency to say yes to a request when we can sense a connection to the person making it.

While text reviews and testimonials can definitely do wonders for your sales, customers respond more favorably to visual cues. Therefore, including visual or video testimonials from genuine customers using your products - as we’ve seen above - can boost your sales. You can do this by:

- Asking long-term customers to submit short video bytes in exchange for incentives like special discounts and offers.

- Encouraging users to tag you in social media posts where they use your merchandise, which you can use in your website.

9. Eradicate the Feeling of "Risk"

One of the key motivators behind the human decision-making process is the possibility of backtracking or changing their mind down the line.

For instance, forcing a registration before the final checkout step can result in an abandoned cart. Instead, show your customers that they have a means for a way out from a purchase decision. This includes:

- Allowing guest checkouts: At the same time, you can highlight incentives and offers on pertinent pages.

10. Add the Human Element

Identity labeling centers on the idea that humans like to own things that reflect their identity or personality.

This means marketers and ecommerce business owners need to understand their audience at a very personal level in order to make their products appeal to them.

By using audience segmentation and developing buyer personas, you can create the right messaging in your copy and product images.

Final Thoughts

Behind every customer interaction or behavior on an eCommerce site is a psychological context that resulted in said action.

These include a motivation to take said action, the means to perform that action and the trigger that brings the action into fruition. Therefore, marketers and ecommerce businesses can leverage consumer psychology and behaviors to organically guide customers down the sales funnel.

Ready to concentrate more on eCommerce sales tactics and less on taxing manual processes?

Albert Ong is the marketing manager at Jazva, an all-in-one ecommerce platform for multi-channel sellers. When not leading content strategy, Albert spends his time listening to audiobooks, writing science fiction, and binge-watching Netflix.